Lenovo To Host Its First North American Partner Conference In May

Lenovo in May will host its first channel partner conference in North America, the Accelerate 2011 Lenovo Channel Partner Forum, in order to bring in new solution providers and further develop its current partnerships as it seeks to gain market share in the consumer and SMB markets.

At the event, which will be held in Las Vegas May 16-18, Lenovo will share its product portfolio plans with partners, get their feedback, and unveil a new advertising campaign, said David Rabin, Lenovo’s Director of Retail and Channel Marketing. Rabin said in the last 18 months, Lenovo has been a channel-focused business, and that in Q1 Lenovo spent more money on the channel than ever before.

"A lot of what we have going for us at Lenovo is because of the channel," Rabin said in an interview. "We are continuing to outpace the market in pretty much all customer segments in North America and the globe and that is channel-driven. We're launching incredibly aggressive programs for channel partners, our budget is growing, and our ability to deploy tools and resources to the channel is at an all-time high."

Rabin said Lenovo's business model historically has centered on the corporate enterprise space, as well as government and education environments, but that the company would like to gain market share in the SMB market where it has not been as successful in the past.

"We're using the channel in a strong way to grow in consumer and SMB, which amounts to well, well, well over fifty percent, probably approaching eighty percent of the market," Rabin said. "It's a huge opportunity area for us to offer a robust product portfolio, and we are looking to partner with the channel to go into this space."

Rabin said Lenovo is hosting the event in order to highlight its relevance to the channel and add both breadth and depth to its channel programs by adding new partners and sharing more information with current Lenovo resellers.

"In terms of year-over-year growth, Lenovo has outpaced the market for the last five quarters, and as we will reinforce probably a thousand times in Las Vegas, the channel is behind that growth," Rabin said. "The event will have a nice mix of new partners recently acquired and those we'd like to do more with."

Rabin said he and other Lenovo channel executives spend much of their time on the road holding advisory council briefings and the Lenovo Live road show, which allows Lenovo partners in various regions of North America information about its products and direct interaction with its executives.

"There's great value in listening to partner feedback going from city-to-city," Rabin said. "One thing we hear a lot when we're on the road talking to partners is, 'Your awareness isn't where it needs to be.' So we hired a new advertising agency and we launched a new campaign, which David Roman, our chief marketing officer, will show partners at the conference and talk about how the Lenovo brand is going to become a household name."

Next: Lenovo On Channel Conflict

Rabin said that by and large Lenovo receives excellent feedback from the partner community which it uses to its advantage. He used the example of the Lenovo ThinkPad x120e, an enterprise-oriented PC system unveiled in January with consumer-style features that Rabin said were developed in response to such feedback. Rabin said Lenovo would like to broaden that communication.

One issue that many Lenovo partners are concerned with is channel conflict, although Lenovo has sought to avoid it as much as possible, according to Rabin. "Channel conflict is something we often hear, whether it's with retail or with our direct engine Lenovo.com," he said. "Our partners have told Lenovo that we've done a fantastic job managing conflict with direct sales. We have taken a lot of steps to make sure our partners are not competing with Lenovo and we're becoming an exceedingly channel partner friendly company using price-matching, quantity restriction, direct models, and private offers as opposed to public offers."

Other channel concerns vary depending on the solution provider and the region they operate in, according to Rabin. "We'll tend to get a different slant in our feedback from partners who aren't authorized or who are recently acquired compared to existing partners who we have a strong relationship with," Rabin said. "The feedback tends to focus on our programs. That's the number one thing we hear people talk about -- be it deal registration, volume, rebate programs -- the thing you hear partners talking about consistently is programs."

Rabin said Lenovo decided to simplify its channel strategy by whittling down the number of partner programs to six and maintaining a measured, consistent approach despite market disruption. "We used to have over two dozen overall programs in the marketplace, and that's just too many to get partners to focus," he said. ""We’re not the only manufacturer who any of our partners are selling and we always keep that in mind. So we've made a concerted effort to be easy to deal with and sell by getting down to six programs."

In addition, in order to simplify its channel programs and attract more solution providers, Lenovo overhauled its Partner Portal, according to Rabin. "It went from a firewall experience that you had to log into, that didn't have updates and wasn't user friendly, to a site that's built with feedback from partner community and updated daily."

At the same time, Rabin said channel partners who don't choose Lenovo are missing an important opportunity to grow their business. "The programs that we put on market, that's what's making our business exceedingly profitable to sell, and those partners not taking advantage of our programs are leaving money on the table. We're not shy about showing that. We'll have Webinars with partners where we literally show how they're leaving money on the table.

Next: Lenovo Seeks More Partner Feedback

Rabin said the event will be a great opportunity to gather feedback from partners, and that Lenovo seeks out those opinions at other non-Lenovo-driven events, including community events and partner conferences. He said Lenovo is not going to be exhibiting at next week's Everything Channel Xchange Solution Provider event in Orlando, due to a schedule conflict that he says has nothing to do with Lenovo's partner strategy. However, Rabin said Lenovo will attend the Xchange Americas 2011 event in Denver in August.

In the meantime, Lenovo is preparing to discuss both product strategy and marketing with its partners. "In addition to the latest product news, we're going to have literally dozens of executives there including our president and COO Rory Reed, dozens of executives from our sales and product groups, as well as experts on finance and marketing for the channel," Rabin said. "Most of all we'll have many product people there, because at the end of the day that's what we sell, we've got all sorts of products, and this is an opportunity for partners selling products in our portfolio to talk to the person who's responsible for it."